Squidward: Tentacles is a fictional character in the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, voiced by actor Rodger Bumpass.
Stephen Hillenburg, a marine researcher, and animator conceived and animated Squidward. On May 1, 1999, he made his television debut in the series’ pilot episode “Help Wanted.”
Despite the fact that his name includes the word “squid,” Squidward is an anthropomorphic octopus.
Between SpongeBob SquarePants’ and Patrick Star’s residences is a moai where he dwells. The character is depicted as irritable, sluggish, self-centered, and egotistical, and he despises his two noisy neighbors.
The two, on the other hand, are oblivious of Squidward’s dislike for them and regard him as a friend. Squidward works at the Krusty Krab restaurant as a cashier, which he despises.
Fans have reacted positively to the character. Squidward has appeared in a number of SpongeBob SquarePants publications, toys, and other items. He can be seen in the full-length feature film The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie from 2004 and its 2015 sequel.
Sponge Bob SquarePants character
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The angry and sour turquoise octopus Squidward is depicted as. He resides in a moai between SpongeBob SquarePants’ pineapple house and Patrick Star’s rock in the underwater metropolis of Bikini Bottom.
Squidward is irritated by his neighbors’ constant laughter and raucous behavior, despite SpongeBob and Patrick being completely unaware that they are bothering him.
Squidward is constantly wallowing in self-pity and despair, desiring celebrity status, fortune, hair, and a glamorous and prestigious profession as a musician or painter with a passion for painting and the clarinet, despite his lack of skill for either.
He is, however, relegated to the menial position of fast-food cashier at the Krusty Krab eatery. Squidward despises his job and is angered by his greedy boss, Mr. Krabs, as well as his resentful neighbor, SpongeBob.
Design and creation of Squidward
As a child, Stephen Hillenburg was enthralled by the ocean and began to develop his artistic ability. He majored in marine biology and minored in art in college.
After graduating in 1984, he went to work at the Ocean Institute, an ocean education organization, where he came up with the idea for The Intertidal Zone, a comic book that eventually became SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg left the Institute in 1987 to pursue a career as an animator.
Hillenburg met Joe Murray, the creator of Rocko’s Modern Life, during an animation event several years after studying experimental animation at the California Institute of the Arts. Hillenburg was offered a position as a series director by Murray.
After reading The Intertidal Zone, Martin Olson, one of the writers for Rocko’s Modern Life, pushed Hillenburg to create a television series based on the same concept. Hillenburg had not contemplated developing his own series at the time, but he quickly understood that this was his chance.
Hillenburg began working on SpongeBob SquarePants shortly after filming on Rocko’s Modern Life concluded in 1996.
Hillenburg drew inspiration for his characters from his comic book. He chose an octopus for “SpongeBob’s grumpy next-door neighbor” because he liked the species’ enormous head; octopuses “have such a large bulbous head, and Squidward believes he’s an academic, so of course he’s going to have a large bulbous head,” he said.
Squidward is usually depicted with six limbs because “it was simply just simpler for animators to make him with six legs instead of eight,” according to Hillenburg.
Only two episodes see Squidward with all eight legs: the live-action sequence in season two’s “Pressure” and a fleeting appearance in season nine’s “Sold!” The character Squidward was named after the squid, which is related to the octopus and has ten arms. The moniker Octoward “simply didn’t work,” according to Squidward’s voice actor Rodger Bumpass.
In 2010, show writer and storyboard artist Vincent Waller stated of Squidward’s design:
Squidward is difficult to draw because of his oddly shaped skull. Fortunately, his emotions are rather balanced, but getting a lot of huge emotion out of him is difficult. Everything is split in half by his nose, so it’s always, ‘OK, how am I going to work this and still make it read?’
Hillenburg considered making jokes about Squidward ejecting ink but decided against it since “it always looks like he’s crap his pants.”
Ink jokes would appear in the episodes “Giant Squidward” and “Ink Lemonade” despite this. Rubbing hot water bottles produces the sound of Squidward’s footsteps, which resembles suction cups dragging on the ground.
The footsteps of the major characters and the rest of the cast are recorded by the show’s foley crew. Footstep sounds, according to sound designer Jeff Hutchins, “[help] distinguish which character it is and what surface they’re treading on.
Bumpass is the one who came up with the idea of having Squidward ride a recumbent bicycle; he has one and rides it around Burbank, California. It’s his “little internal joke,” according to Bumpass.
Actor Rodger Bumpass provides Squidward’s
voice and that of several other SpongeBob SquarePants characters, including Squidward’s mother.
Hillenburg and the show’s then-creative director Derek Drymon were doing voice auditions while developing the show and scripting the pilot episode in 1997.
Hillenburg’s first option for the job was Mr. Lawrence, who had previously worked with Hillenburg and Drymon on Rocko’s Modern Life. Lawrence had been invited to audition for all of the show’s characters by Hillenburg.
Hillenburg chose Lawrence to play Plankton, the series’ villain, instead of Squidward.
Squidward was “a pretty nasally, monotonous kind of man,” according to Bumpass. He explained that the role became exciting to play because of “his sarcasm, frustration, and apoplexy, and so he became a vast spectrum of emotions.”
“I enjoy seeing Rodger… He’s right next to me,” Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob, said of Bumpass rehearsing his lines in the studio. When Bumpass “goes apoplectic” as Squidward while filming, his head gets red, and you’re frightened he’ll have an embolism, according to Kenny.
Several members of the cast and crew laud Bumpass’ performance and resemblance to the role. “[He] is sort of like Squidward,” Kenny stated, describing Bumpass as “amazing.”
Kent Osborne, a staff writer, stated, “Rodger talks and acts a lot like Squidward, I recall thinking. That’s why his voice is so good—so he’s attached to it.
However, according to Bumpass, “I’m not him, and he’s not me, but what I’m expected to do for him, and what I’m capable of doing for him, is what makes it feel like me.
It’s a perfect match for my skills and abilities. So, yes, he is me in that regard, but I am not the grumpy, caustic, underachiever that he is. I’ll admit that he’s easy to fall for.
The voice of Squidward has been compared to that of Jack Benny. “To me, there’s something just so comic about the Jack-Benny-loyal-to-nobody character that Rodger Bumpass plays so well Squidward,” Kenny added.
Squidward “sounds a lot like Jack Benny,” according to Arthur Brown, author of Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Cartoons! Bumpass expressed his displeasure with the arrangement, adding, “No, it’s not Jack Benny. He did, however, have this observant sarcasm that he used on occasion.
Reception of Squidward
Squidward has been well appreciated by critics and fans alike. Tom Kenny, who voices Squidward on SpongeBob, says Squidward is his favorite character on the show.
He explained “He has another dimension in which SpongeBob and Patrick’s ability to play perplexes him, but he is also envious of it. He totally fails when he attempts to join since he doesn’t believe in it.”
Casey Alexander, a staff writer, remarked, “Squidward is the character with whom I most identify. He’s the most human character, in an exaggerated sense. If I met a human that looks like SpongeBob, I’m quite sure I’d respond the same way Squidward does “..
Pharrell Williams, an American artist who claims to be a fan of the show, stated that “Squidward, on the other hand, is my favorite. I’d hang out with him if he were human.”
Squidward is “a combination between Bert [of Sesame Street], Woody Allen, and Roger Addison [of Mr. Ed], but he has some heart if you can find it,” according to Bill Treadway of DVD Verdict. He was dubbed “the straight guy for his neighbor’s pranks” by Treadway.
In his review of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, film critic A. O. Scott of The New York Times stated that Squidward, along with Sandy Cheeks and Mrs. Puff, is one of his favorite minor characters on the show. “I was sorry to see [them] pushed to the periphery,” he wrote.
Squidward has “the nasal bitchiness of Paul Lynde and the artistic pretensions of Felix Unger,” according to television writer Joyce Millman, who also wrote for the same journal. “Hmmm, Squidward is one queer squid, I guess,” Millman continued.
Many critics and fans alike consider “Band Geeks,” a second-season episode centered on Squidward, to be one of the show’s best episodes.
Michael Cavna of The Washington Post picked “Band Geeks” as the seventh-best SpongeBob SquarePants episode. “Squidward’s mix of artistic aspiration in the face of goading, humiliation, and unrelenting sub-mediocrity makes this a kids’ episode that adults can experience on a whole ‘nother level,” Cavna wrote in his review.
Squidward was named one of Common Sense Media’s “10 Worst TV Role Models of 2012” on a less positive note. Squidward’s selfishness is his “biggest offense,” according to author Sierra Filucci, who also referred to him as “the rude and nasty cashier at the Krusty Krab” and added that “[he] is kind only when he wants something.
Bumpass was nominated for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program at the 39th Daytime Emmy Awards in 2012 for his vocal portrayal as Squidward, becoming him the first cast member to be recognized in this category. June Foray of The Garfield Show won the award.
Bumpass stated he was happy with the nomination certificate he received, but “June Foray, who is royalty in the animation business, was one of the other contenders, so there wasn’t really a competition… There was no way the other three men stood a chance. There would have been a riot in that studio [The Beverly Hilton] if any of us had one.
He expressed his gratitude for the nomination, saying he was “glad to lose to June Foray” and “extremely thrilled and grateful to earn a nomination.”
In other forms of media
Squidward has appeared in a variety of SpongeBob SquarePants-related products, including board games, books, plush toys, and trading cards.
Squidward also appears in SpongeBob Comics (first released in February 2011), many SpongeBob SquarePants video games, and various theme parks and theme park parades (including Sea World[44] and Universal’s Superstar Parade), in addition to the television series.
In 2004, Squidward starred in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, the first feature-length film adaptation of the show, which was released on November 19, 2004, and grossed over US$140 million worldwide. He also features in the sequel, which was released on February 6, 2015, in theatres.
The SpongeBob SquarePants episode “The Sponge Who Could Fly” was made into a theatrical musical in 2009 at Liverpool Empire Theatre and later in South Africa.
Squidward was created by actor Charles Brunton, who subsequently stated that he enjoyed the character and the “pleasure [of] trying to re-create a well-known cartoon character into a live performance on stage.”
Brunton prepared for the role by purchasing nine seasons of the show on DVD and acting out Squidward’s role in each episode in his bedroom. “It took a long time to develop the voice and the way he utilized his arms,” he remarked.
The majority of critics praised Brunton’s performance and the musical. “Charles Brunton as Squidward definitely stole the show for us,” observed a critic for The Public Reviews, “his role was nailed to perfection; from his humorous acting, voice, and mannerisms, this was a superb performance.
“Charles Brunton plays a credible Squidward,” Viv Hardwick said in his review for The Northern Echo. Chris van Rensburg was cast in the role in South Africa.
In June 2016, the Oriental Theatre in Chicago hosted the world premiere of a stage musical based on the show.
Squidward was created by actor Gavin Lee, who repeated the character on Broadway and in the television adaption The SpongeBob Musical: Live on Stage! Cody Cooley played a part in the North American tour.
Gavin Lee earned a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 2018 for his work on Broadway.
Is Squidward an octopus or squid?
Despite his moniker, Squidward Q. Tentacles, SpongeBob SquarePants’ grumpy neighbor in the popular Nickelodeon show, isn’t a squid. He is a squid. (It is said that Squidward was given by creator Stephen Hillenburg because “Octoward” seemed strange.)
Who is Squidward in love with?
In the episode “Love That Squid,” an octopus named Squilvia makes an appearance, and Squidward sets her up on a date.
Does Squidward love SpongeBob?
He cowers in dread with SpongeBob, though, when a figure that resembles his creation walks approaching the eatery in the middle of the night. He tells SpongeBob that he has always secretly liked him, which is just so sweet coming from him, as he believes his end is near.
Why does Squidward only have 6 legs?
Even though Squidward Tentacles only has six tentacles, he is an octopus. Because he has less tentacles, it’s just simpler to animate him, according to creator Steven Hillenberg.
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